Oil, Olive vs. Canola 

Real Food vs. Manufactured Food

Today’s post is about the processing differences between olive oil and canola oil. I advocate a real food lifestyle. This means, the bulk of the food eaten is as minimally processed as possible. I’m not saying no processed food ever. For example, I like cured meats. Cured meats are more processed than a ribeye steak or roasted chicken. There are degrees of processing and that processing extends to just about all foods, including fats.

Over the last 3 blog posts I tried to differentiate ‘healthy’ fats from other fats. There are differences between fats beyond processing that I believe make some ‘healthy’ and others, not so healthy. If you’ve missed those posts and would like to catch up you can find them here: Coconut Oil, Not Poison, Stop Fearing Fat & Fat, What to Eat.

Minimally Processed vs. Heavily Processed

Today’s post focuses on the processing of both olive oil and canola oil. How a food is processed is one more way for you to evaluate if that food is something that you want in your diet or not. The more processed a food, the more removed from nature. Food is information. Your body recognizes real food and knows how to metabolize and use that food to enhance function.

This post is going to be pretty simple, two videos. One is how olive oil is made and the other, how canola oil is made. I consider olive oil to be minimally processed. I believe the video supports that. I had no idea how canola oil was made until I watched the video. I would consider canola oil to be heavily processed. Watch the videos and decide for yourself.

Olive Oil

The following video is 5 minutes and 11 seconds long.

Highlights:

• Olives have been harvested for 1000s of years
• Historically, olive oil have been extracted from the fruit by crushing it with stones
• Olive oil has been used as food, fuel and medicinal ointment
• Olives are removed from trees, mixed with water, leaves and twigs are separated from the olives as the water drains away
• Cleaned olives go into ‘crusher’, 600 lb granite wheels that grind the olives into a paste
• Oil is extracted from the paste, traditionally the paste was spread on matts then stacked to press out the oil
• Modern extraction uses metal plates and a centrifuge to spin and extract the oil, resulting in virgin olive oil
• There are tasters to test the oil for smell and flavor
• Premium grade oil is bottled in dark glass to protect the oil from degrading and losing its intensity

Canola Oil

The following video is 5 minutes long

Highlights

• Commonly used cooking oil, derived from the seed of the canola plant
• North American farmers have been growing the canola plant for about 30 years
• Canola seeds are harvested from the bright yellow flowers produced by the plant
• Canola oil is one of the ‘healthiest’ cooking oils.
• Compared to olive, sunflower and soybean oil, canola has the lowest level of saturated fat, 7%
• Canola contains omega 3 fatty acids and monounsaturated fatty acids
• Canola seed is typically mixed with plant pieces when it arrives at the factory
• Seeds are cleaned in a vibrating sieve
• Seeds pass by a magnet which removes any metal that may be have been mixed with the seeds on the journey from field to factory
• Seeds go through a roller mill that crushes them into thin flakes
• Flakes are then fed into a screw press where the oil is squeezed out
• 42% of canola is oil, the press extracts about 3/4 of that
• The last of the oil is still contained in the pressed flakes, this is called canola cake
• The second extraction is a 70 min. chemical extraction with a solvent
• All extracted oil then goes through a refining phase
• Oil is washed for 20 min. with sodium hydroxide
• Even after the first cleaning phase, the oil still contains natural waxes
• The oil is cooled so the waxes can be filtered out
• The waxes are used to produce vegetable shortening
• After washing and filtering the oil, it’s bleached to lighten the color
• Then there is a steam injection heating process to remove the canola odor
• Once the oil is fully refined, it’s ready for bottling
• Canola oil has a shelf life of about 1 year

Please note, when canola oil is referred to as ‘healthy’ that is referring to the fact that it is low in saturated fat. This plays into the outdated and debunked idea that saturated fat is linked to heart disease. I don’t consider canola oil a healthy oil nor do I believe that saturated fat is the cause of heart disease.

I hope you had time to watch the videos. I found the difference between the processing of each oil very interesting and a great example of minimally processed vs. heavily processed. The deodorizing of canola oil struck me as particularly interesting since the fragrance of the olive oil is such an important part of the final quality check.

If you’d like to download my client handouts which include: a list of health fats vs. unhealthy fats, information about saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, and a chart of some common foods with the ratios of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat content please enter your name and email below to receive an email with a PDF document download. 

Be well,

Amy White, Functional Nutritionist

I’m Amy a board certified holistic nutritionist, certified functional nutritionist and lifestyle practitioner and certified Life Coach. I help women in midlife understand the changing needs of their body so that they can stop dieting and lose weight permanently. At 56 I live what I teach. Don’t believe the story that your best years are behind you. They are not. Your best years are just starting!